D2 NAAF Around Omachi

Route: around Omachi and up to Kuzuonsen

Bicycle: 60 km
Total ascent: 1012 m
Average speed: 
Riding time: 4:19 h
Weather: clouds and sun, no rain, 22C

Also today I saw one piece of art that was great. Unfortunately only one. Or one and an half. But that one was actually the best I have seen so far. Better even than the ones in Echigo Tsumari. 

Initially I thought that the second last art work was good, and it’s nice and all, but like yesterday the best was the last one.

A very cruel piece of art. In the forest some trees have been cut, prepared into wooden planks, firewood and even the branches are all there. Only a central column remains and the root still in the earth. While the neighboring tree hasn’t been mutilated and is still growing as if nothing had happened to his neighbor. Makes you wonder if one should be “lignio abstinent”. But at the same time I am thinking of buying a piece of land in Tokyo to build a house which will be made of wood… conflicted…

It’s also true that there are too many trees in Japan. Specially Japanese cedars (probably the tree in the picture) which causes hay fewer to what seems to be half of the population in Japan. Actually the government announced a plan to reduce these trees, but it is hard to see how this can be implemented due to the lack of manpower specially in rural areas and just the vastness of the forests and mountains in Japan.

The day started relatively late, because the art works don’t open until 9:30 and I used the full opening time until 16:30. The first art work was close to my accommodation around lake Nakatsuna. 

I’d say decorative, but mainly because the lake is nice by itself. The next two in an abandoned school did tell me even less. 

The third on my way to a dam was a video installation about hunters and the forth was a decorated but otherwise ugly wall of the Omachi Power museum… 

… a museum likely dedicated to the many dams that exist in the area. The most famous of them: Kurobe Dam, which is on a complicated but very popular route of many different transports (Trolleybus, cable car, bus, train…) through the Northern Alps. 

From there it was up and up to a first dam …

And a second dam which had yet another piece of art.

For me it was the place to eat my onigiri. Which felt a bit little but was all I had. As it was already 12:00 I decided against continuing up to the final dam but instead was tempted by an onsen in the area which had been highly recommended by the owner of the pension where I am staying. 

It was a nice onsen, but I confirmed that doing an onsen during a ride isn’t so nice as doing it at the end knowing thrrr are only a few kilometers left. 

Once down from the mountain I found a soba restaurant (in the middle of soba fields) , where I had lunch. Warm soba this time. 

Before heading to the last cluster of art works on Omachi onsenkyo a hotel village , now apparently popular by bus tours that do the Kurobe dam tour. 

In this old sake factory now a sake museum where small moving and sounding objects. 

Right next to what seemed to be a waste thermal plant was this art work, which didn’t tell me anything. Jus looked like wooden planks for walking, similar to the ones in the forest with the long poem above. It looks like a nice place to have lunch, but that’s about it.

Anyway even here I did get one more stamp for my passbook.

And off I went to the last but one piece of art, which gains an honorable mention.

But the best was the last, to which I arrived in extremis, barely minutes before they were closing.